I was thinking about this the first time today. When Jesus introduced the memorial celebration he didn't invite all his deciples. Only the apostoles were present. No doubt there were many baptised Chrisians by then. Why is it that the Watchtower is so obsessed with this whole thing? It is so important to JWs that even many of the inactive and dissfellowshiped ones attend.
Jesus didn't invite everyone.
by apostate 4 Replies latest jw friends
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LDH
That's exactly why I didn't go.
I've posted this thought before, and agree with you.
Welcome,
Lisa -
hannibal
It could be just a mesuring stick,by that i mean thay use those numbers all the time.We had 14 million at the memorial last yr and only 8,000 partoke.Arn't we special.
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JanH
No doubt there were many baptised Chrisians by then.
If you want to base your life on what you find in an old book, please at least consider making yourself familiar with that book first.Nobody was baptised a Christian before Pentecost.
Baptism was at this time a common Jewish custom, especially in the Essene community. John the Baptist seems to have been one of these baptisers. Jesus was one of those he baptised, some of the others being his apostles. How many others were baptised of his followers, is anybody's guess. Many people were of course baptised while not being in any way associeted with the Christians.
What is notable, is that the women are excluded. They are elsewhere described as Jesus' most prominent (and sane) followers. It is exctremely unlike the Jesus-figure we see elsewhere in the gospels to exclude the women.
This strongly indicates that the eucharist narratives comes from a much later source, probably to justify the inclusion of the common mystery cult "love meal" in the Pauline-Christian religion.
- Jan
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"Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate." - Occam -
apostate
To:JanH
Easy to say get familiar with the Bible. I tried to do it for 10+ years and I found that the Bible is one of the hardest books to understand. It'a like quantum phisics.
What I realy meant to say in my first posting is that only the Apostles where present at the first memorial celebration.(it was a closed meeting not a public event like the Watchtower does it.) At that time Jesus had lot more followers than the Apostoles. Jet they were not there. And it was OK!
The Watchtower is abusing the brothers and systers because they demand everyone to be there. It is a sin if you miss it. I you are not there all the congregation will look at you as spiritually weak.